HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE. 53 



to nothing : Air, Earth, and Water are, as it were, 

 under his control. The trees grow, the rivers run, 

 as they are directed ; and the very air is made to pay 

 toll by means of the windmills. 



To begin with, Holland has a meagre list of in- 

 digenous trees and shrubs, and scarcely an indigenous 

 ligneous flora. There is little wood in the country, 

 for the heavy winds are calculated to destroy high- 

 growing trees, and the roots cannot penetrate into the 

 ground to any depth, without coming to water. The 

 land is flat, and although artificial mountains of 

 granite brought from Norway and Sweden have been 

 erected as barriers against the sea, there is scarcely 

 a stone to be found except in the Island of Urk. 



The conditions of the country being so unfavour- 

 able to artistic handling, it needs a determined effort 

 on man's part to lift things above the dead-level of 

 the mean and commonplace. Yet see how Nature's 

 defects may only prove Art's opportunity ! Indeed, it 

 is singular to note how, as it were, in a spirit of noble 

 contrariness, the Dutch garden exhibits the opposite 

 grace of each natural defect of the land. The great 

 plains intersected with sullen watercourses yield up 

 only slight strips of land, therefore these niggardly 

 strips, snatched from " an amphibious world " (as 

 Goldsmith terms it), shall be crammed with beauty. 

 The landscape outside gapes with uniform dull- 

 ness, therefore the garden within shall be spick and 

 span. The flat treeless expanse outside offers no 

 objects for measuring distance, therefore the perspec- 

 tive of the garden shall be a marvel of adroit plan- 



